There was a loose plan to have a spring gathering upon the arrival of the Vernal Equinox. But that never happened. Everybody got busy.
So, a plan sprang up, almost like a case of spontaneous generation, to welcome summer. The rattling sound of the air conditioner might have got Deano thinking about it. So it happened.
First, owner Joe Barren showed up from Florida. Jackie the Crow and Stickie Sammartino were there by 10 a.m. Kenny Foy had a Chinese girlfriend and and they were both there and joined Stickie and Jackie at the bar where Deano had been in place and at work since well before 10 a.m.. Jimmy Jammin, no longer tipling but hungry for company showed up about 11 a.m.. Deano offered him an ODoul’s but he said, no cranberry and soda was his drink now — and an occasional ginger ale. Since there would be outdoor activity and organizing, Tash DeSilva, Monday-Tuesday bartender came to help. Bill Kirner, who ran the book club at his apartment around the corner, came in about the same time as Bo Cherry Burkhrdt and her steady beaux Charlie Simonnetti.
Knox, the upstairs resident artist, was still working on his mural but set down the brush long enough to take his place over his Blushing Monk at the far corner of the bar. It was, however — because it was before noon — a non-alchoholic Monk Deano had concocted for him. (I’d like to try that! What on earth are the fruity or fizzy substitutes out of which you make a booze festival-in-a-class such as that?)
Willy Hartrey had been cleaning the place overnight, as was his job. He was there. Jerry Garagiola, who runs the body shop in Lynn and who is a neighbor but only rarely a customer — he was out behind the building with his wife helping set up the tables in that small dirt lot, scene of other gatherings.
Pippa Goldflower came unattached — up to the noon hour.
And, greatest surprise of all — Carl McClure, whom no one at the Mile ever expected to see again, came quietly down the side street and into the rear lot where, as noted, festivities were still in their formative stage. The time was about one p.m.
The summer gathering, Joe Barren’s first, was underway.
“Joe, tell me something, I said when I showed up. “Why didn’t you wait until the summer solstice? You know, the official, astronomical start of summer?”
“Too late in June,” Joe said. “I’m up from Florida, too hot down there. It’s summertime. So, we celebrate.”
And so, as the world burned, from Gaza to Tel Aviv, tanks rolled in a grand military display in Washington, protesters mobbed to the intersections convinced there is a self-involved, jingoistic egoist mounting an American throne, counter-protesters appeared on the other side of the intersections, politicians were assassinated in Minnesota and rioters tried to take the streets in L.A. , the steady patrons of The Last Mile Lounge on the Revere, Lynn line tried to dispel the darkness and make spirits bright.
But Deano had to tell Joe, “looks like rain, boss.”
“If it comes, we’ll just squeeze indoors,” he said.
That’s the spirit.
And so summer began for Joe Barron and guests a good week before the earth’s north pole was pointed toward the sun.
19 Cent Notebook 